


tell me a story

by lesmiserablol



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Bedtime Stories, Firelord Zuko (Avatar), Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Canon, Zuko (Avatar) whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:21:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25249834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesmiserablol/pseuds/lesmiserablol
Summary: “There’s my Hotman,” Sokka smirks, leaning over to press a quick kiss to Zuko’s cheek. “We missed you! You know Izumi can’t go to bed without her two favorite dads to tuck her in.”Zuko smoothes Izumi’s hair down. “I’m sorry, my princess, Daddy got so caught up with his writing, but he ran here to make sure he could say goodnight to you.”“It’s okay,” Izumi smiles, showing off the gap where her two front teeth had been a few days ago. “Papa told me a story from his days traveling with Uncle Aang!”“I heard, it sounded pretty exciting.” Zuko grins at his husband. “You are lucky to have a Papa with such cool stories.”
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 152
Kudos: 713





	tell me a story

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to practice some angst with these two. Sorry.

“Lord Zuko,” a quiet voice says, and Zuko finishes the line of the letter he is writing before he looks up at the servant standing in front of his desk.

“Yes?” he asks, taking a moment to rub his tired eyes. 

“My apologies, it’s just that,” the servant hesitates. “It’s, well, bedtime.”

For a wild moment, Zuko wonders if the servant is trying to tell him to stop working and go to sleep, but then he jumps, realizing how the sky outside is darker than he remembered it being the last time it checked. “Oh, shit, thank you,” he says, putting his brush down immediately and leaving the letter out on the desk for him to continue as soon as possible. 

He rushes through the palace, barely stopping himself from running and bracing himself for the sound of crying-

But it doesn’t come. Izumi’s door is just barely propped open, and he frowns as he gets closer. Is he too late? Is she already sleeping?

He stops outside the door, his hand freezing on the wood as he hears the voices inside. 

“-and then, there was this humongous, twenty foot tall sabertooth moose lion standing right in front of me! I couldn’t move but if I could, I would have ran, ran as fast as you can run, and zoomed out of there! But I was stuck, and I didn’t even have a Princess Izumi to save me!”

“Oh no! What did you do?” 

“I smiled at the beast and I said, ‘Please, spare me, I have so much to live for!’ And he saw my charming good looks and my dazzling smile and he decided to not eat me. Instead, we became best friends, and I named him Foo Foo Cuddlypoops. He kept me company until Uncle Aang came to rescue me.”

Zuko quietly pushes the door open, standing in the frame as he watches his husband sitting on the side of their daughter’s bed, both of them engrossed in story time.

“I want to name him Foo Foo Cuddlypoops the Third,” Izumi says seriously, hugging her stuffed Otter Penguin close to her chest.

Sokka laughs. “Why not the Second?” 

“The Third sounds cooler,” Izumi points out. “And more...dramatic.”

Sokka shakes his head. “You are definitely your Daddy’s daughter.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Zuko asks with a smile that widens as the two of them notice his presence for the first time, their eyes simultaneously lighting up.

“Daddy!” Izumi squeals, and Zuko walks over to sit on the other side of the bed next to her, hugging his six year old daughter tightly. 

“There’s my Hotman,” Sokka smirks, leaning over to press a quick kiss to Zuko’s cheek. “We missed you! You know Izumi can’t go to bed without her two favorite dads to tuck her in.”

Zuko smoothes Izumi’s hair down and notices the dry tear tracks on her cheeks. “I’m sorry, my princess, Daddy got so caught up with his writing, but he ran here to make sure he could say goodnight to you.”

“It’s okay,” Izumi smiles, showing off the gap where her two front teeth had been a few days ago. “Papa told me a story from his days traveling with Uncle Aang!”

“I heard, it sounded pretty exciting.” Zuko grins at his husband. “You are lucky to have a Papa with such cool stories.”

Izumi nods excitedly. “One more story! One more story!” 

“Sweetheart, you need to go to bed now,” Zuko says gently. “Remember Aunt Toph is coming to visit tomorrow.”

“But I’m not tired!” she protests with a yawn, then puts on her best polar bear puppy eyes. “Please?”

Zuko sighs internally. He knows that Sokka must have taught her that look, and they all know that Zuko is completely weak to it. “Okay, one more quick one.”

Izumi beams and Sokka has a matching expression of joy on his face as he dives into the next tale. “Okay, once upon a time, a dragon had captured Grandpa Hakoda, and Prince Sokka wanted to save him! So he found another charming prince, Prince Zuko, to help. They snuck off in the middle of the night...”

They finish the story and Izumi insists on a group hug before finally lying down and closing her heavy eyes. Zuko smiles at her sleeping figure as he closes her door.

“Good thinking, she loved those stories,” he grins at his husband, leading them down the hall. 

"Oh, you know how she gets if the two of us aren't there for bedtime," Sokka shrugs. "It has proven to be my best distraction tactic yet, she stopped crying immediately."

“You did a nice job, even if they were a bit exaggerated.” 

Sokka gasps. “Excuse me, that sabertooth moose lion might as well have been twenty feet tall when I was trapped in the ground like that! I didn’t even mention its mom, that would for sure give Izumi nightmares.”

Zuko laughs. “She may not ever want us to read her books ever again. I’m not complaining though, I swear I have half of those memorized by now.”

He starts to walk to the library when he feels Sokka grab his hand and tug him in the other direction. He stops and turns to face him, unsurprised at the raised eyebrow on Sokka’s face. “I just have to finish this one letter…” Zuko starts.

Sokka shakes his head. “Come on, we both know that as soon as you finish that letter you’ll just think of something else to work on. You already missed dinner, now let’s go to bed.”

“But, it’ll only take just a minute,” he tries, but he doesn’t resist as Sokka gives his hand another tug and leads them toward their bedroom. 

“Once upon a time, there was a handsome Fire Lord who had a bad habit of overworking himself when he should’ve been cuddling his husband,” Sokka tells him, and Zuko rolls his eyes.

“Oh great, are you going to make me the villain, then?” he asks, smirking.

Sokka turns to give him a wink. “Nah, don’t worry. I’ve always had a soft spot for the bad boys of the story."

**_Three years later_ **

Everything that Sokka did was so incredibly _Sokka._ The way he cooked (or rather, burned) food, the way he told stories, the games he made up with Izumi. It was all so fitting to his character.

Even the way he died seemed fitting. Fair? Not in the slightest. But fitting, yes. Sokka had always wanted to go down with a fight. At least, he did before he started a family.

They had been ambushed as soon as they landed on Kyoshi Island, him and the Kyoshi warrior that had gone with him to guard him. The warrior had been targeted and knocked out within seconds, and she woke up to find the result of the attack. Sokka had put up a fight. He had taken some warriors down. But there was only so much one man and a boomerang could do against a dozen trained fighters determined to send a message to the Fire Lord. 

(That morning, he had tried sneaking out of the room, but Zuko woke up to an empty bed and grumbled a “Where’s my goodbye kiss?”

“Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you.” Sokka quickly retraced his steps and delivered a kiss to his husband’s lips. “I’ll be back by the time you wake up tomorrow, promise.”)

Zuko should’ve gone with him. It was the fifteen year anniversary of the end of the war, he should’ve known better, known that tensions would be high. He should’ve insisted on more guards going with Sokka. But it didn’t matter now. It was too late.

The days that followed were a blur. One minute, he was in the throne room, hearing the news. His grief seemed to suck the life out of the fires lighting up the room until they were reduced to barely flickering flames, leaving him in a palace that hadn’t been this cold or dark since Sokka moved in. And the next minute, he was staring numbly at the casket in front of him, his uncle on one side, his daughter on the other, dressed in all blue as was custom for Water Tribe funerals.

He and Katara held each other. He wept with Suki. Aang sat with him after the burial until he was ready to leave. Toph’s usual arm punches were replaced with her hand grasping his, not commenting at how tightly Zuko held on to her. Iroh stayed in the palace for a few weeks. He helped Zuko with the burden of his usual duties and he taught Izumi a few new recipes for tea, talking softly about the Spirit World as he did. 

His daughter was Zuko’s rock. She may not have realized it, but for a while, being there for her was the only thing that gave Zuko purpose. Knowing that she had lost one father and didn’t need to lose the other to grief gave him a reason to take everything one day at a time and keep moving forward.

She is only nine years old, and it pains Zuko that she had to lose Sokka at such a young age. 

“Daddy?” she asks softly one night as Zuko tucks her into bed. 

“Yes, my darling?” he asks.

“Can you tell me a story?” 

Zuko nods. “Of course. Which one would you like?” he asks, turning to her bookcase. Her collection of books grows with every year and he has a feeling that The Ugly Turtleduckling is no longer her favorite, so he scans the titles for something interesting.

“No, not those,” she shakes her head. “Tell me a story...like Papa used to do. When I was little.”

Zuko swallows the lump in his throat and nods. “Okay. Uh, once there was a princess, and her name was Izumi, and she...uh, she was so brave, and-”

Izumi makes a face. “No, tell me a real story tonight. Tell me about you and Papa.”

Zuko can't stop himself from looking to the other side of the bed, where he would always sit during bedtime. It looks too big, too empty, a Sokka-sized space that had been filled just weeks ago. When she was younger, she couldn't sleep unless they both tucked her in. Now, Zuko is the one who struggles to sleep without Sokka there to tell him goodnight. “What story do you want?”

“Tell me about the first time you kissed,” she giggles, hugging her stuffed Otter Penguin, and Zuko smiles.

“Okay. Well, your Daddy and Papa were good friends for three whole years before they finally kissed. I was too scared about what would happen if I told Papa that I loved him, so I kept it a secret...”

Zuko tells her the story. He stumbles over some details and he has to start over once to get it right, but Izumi listens closely, completely focused on him. He explains everything that he remembers, from the weather, to the smell of Sokka’s hair, to the turtleducks who interrupted their kiss because they wanted more bread crumbs. When he finishes, Izumi sits up in her bed, still watching him.

“Did I make you sad?” she asks with a frown. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

Zuko wipes away the tears that had fallen down his cheeks during the story. “No, sweetie, it’s okay. These are happy tears.”

“How are they happy tears if Papa is gone?” Izumi asks, her bottom lip trembling. 

Zuko smiles, grabbing her hand. “Because I knew him for over fifteen years, and they were the best years of my life. I am happy because of all the memories I have with him, and even though it is sad that he is gone, I am so lucky I married him. He loved you so much, and spent every day trying to show you that and always trying to be a better father for you. I see so much of him in you.”

“I miss him,” Izumi says quietly, and Zuko pulls her in as she starts crying, holding her as she grabs onto the front of his shirt and her shoulders shake with his.

“So do I, sweetheart. So do I,” he sighs, rubbing her back.

After a few minutes, she pulls back with a loud sniff and rubs her eyes. “Fifteen years is a lot of stories.”

“Good, because I need to practice my story telling, and you are the perfect audience,” Zuko smiles, smoothing her hair down and handing her a handkerchief from her nightstand. “Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the first time we went ice dodging together.”

Izumi’s watery smile brightens. “I can’t wait!”

“Me neither. Now go to sleep, I love you,” Zuko says, kissing the top of her forehead. 

“I love you, too,” Izumi tells him, grabbing him for another hug.

Zuko closes his eyes, and he can almost feel Sokka’s arms around them.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on my [Avatar the Last Airbender blog](https://bisexuallsokka.tumblr.com/) <3


End file.
